"ROCK IS DEAD"

Rock in Ireland is dead - the country now belongs to pop bands.

That's the view of Louis Walsh, the showbiz veteran whose canny stewardship of Boyzone has put him at the centre of the Irish boy and girl band explosion.

Never one to mince his words, Walsh is also standing by his recent attacks on RTE's National Song Contest. And his belief that the song which won was "crap". At the time such comments were seen as "sour grapes" on his behalf, given that his protégé, Boyzone lead singer Ronan Keating, had failed to secure a winning position with the song he wrote for another act from Walsh's stable of boy bands, The Carter Twins.

"Ronan and The Carters should have won," Louis insists. "It would have been the perfect combination for Eurovision, a song with even a big record company behind it. And where is our winner, Dawn Martin, now?" he goes on, laughing at the suggestion that she was last seen, in that already legendary tabloid photograph, receiving what seemed like mouth-to-mouth resuscitation from Pat Kenny.

"The poor man was just kissing her. He felt sorry for her! Just like I did, though I wouldn't give lip suction to everyone I felt sorry for! But what has happened to Dawn? She was famous not for fifteen, but for five minutes! In Birmingham, of all places! Then again, I didn't want Ireland to win because I would have had egg all over my face. But there was no chance we were going to win. Not so much because the song itself was bad, it was okay, but the backing track was crap. And the presentation was disastrous. She looked like a girl that should be singing in the karaoke contest in The Red Cow. On a Monday, which is a really bad night in The Red Cow! There was no star quality and the record wasn't even a hit here in Ireland. And I blame RTE because that was a great chance for an artist, songwriter and record company to get a hit record and RTE blew it."

Even so, Walsh reveals that if RTE wanted him to, he would "take a shot" at the Eurovision next year because, having watched his previous protégés Johnny Logan and Linda Martin win, he'd "love to win for Ireland again". He rejects the notion that even the mention of Ireland winning again and thus having to absorb the cost of hosting the Eurovision Song Contest will induce fits of apoplexy among programme-makers in Montrose who, apparently are told, whenever RTE does host the Contest, that budgetary cuts must be imposed elsewhere to meet the costs.

"If the cost of the Eurovision is their excuse for not making other kinds of programmes what excuse are they going to have this year?" he asks. "And not just in terms of, say, the Drama Department. They've got the same old shows all over the place. The same old presenters. It's a disaster. RTE needs a major kick-in-the-arse. It needs new presenters. A new Pat Kenny, a new Gay Byrne, a new Marty Whelan. Even on the afternoon show, with Ray D'arcy gone, they can't find a good replacement. But they don't, I hear, even train their presenters. And there's people out there who have been with the station since it started and they just can't get rid of them. That's the problem.

Look at Dave Fanning. I like Dave Fanning, he's a lovely guy but he has a rock show on RTE radio, so what's he doing playing OTT and Boyzone on 2TV for kids? His collection at home would be all rock. And I don't like his radio show. It's boring. He's playing the same old stuff, the same old 'B' sides and obscure fucking records by obscure acts as he has been for twenty years, plus. The show should be on late at night instead of Mike Moloney! And Dave knows that for himself."

Shifting his focus back to the Eurovision Song Contest, Walsh explains why, and how he'd revamp "the whole process" for RTE.

"I'll provide a name artist, a great song, producer, record company, a whole campaign and get them a huge hit record. That's the only reason I'd go into it, to get a hit record. But we got no hit record this year. I slagged it off and I'm glad I did," he says. "Yet if we're going to have to depend on the bloody jury down in Galway, voting for some idiot singing in Irish, there's no point in me even trying. That's what happened this year. This guy looked like one of The Dubliners, and they gave him the top vote in Galway."

Surely the voters in Galway have a democratic right to back what they might see as indigenous Irish culture?

"Fine. But it's not Eurovision culture. If we want to win we have to get people who know something about pop music and pop culture."

So, does Mr. Walsh, self-proclaimed king of Irish pop, have an act in mind for the Eurovision - and would that act happen to be one that he, by some strange quirk of fate, manages?

"Well, yeah, I would still like to put forward The Carter Twins!" he grins. "They are made for Eurovision. They are perfect."

Then, turning to the subject of radio in Ireland, Louis Walsh, who is part of a consortium currently applying to the IRTC, for a radio licence, repeats his claim, as made in Hot Press last year, that "Irish radio still doesn't play enough Irish music." FM104, which he specifically attacked at that point, is "now doing a hell of a lot better, along these lines," he says. "But 98FM is still a boring station, keeping Fleetwood Mac and The Eagles in royalties, and The Bee Gees. They don't break any new Irish acts. And, like I've always said, it is radio, more than anything else, that breaks records, make hits. I love radio. I listen to it all the time. And I do think there is an opening for a new station in Ireland, like Kiss FM in the UK. Though, that said, we do have good radio here. Radio One is good for what it is, but 2FM, 98 and 104 are all the same. You can't tell the difference between one and the other, especially in terms of the music they play. As for Today FM, it is, I think, getting better. In fact I've become what I think is their third listener! Me and Ronan listen to the send-up they do of Boyzone and love it!"

Is there any truth to the rumour that Louis Walsh "gave away" new "pop sensation" B*witched, two of whom, of course, are sisters of Boyzone's Shane?

"Yeah. But I didn't want them because I was too busy with Boyzone," he explains. "So I introduced them to Ray Hedges and Kim Glover, who used to work with New Kids On The Block. That was a year and a half ago. They spent all that time working, doing road shows. Then Ray wrote the song, produced it, is involved in the publishing and even started his own record label and got together all the gimmicks, as in the Riverdance thing in the single, C'est La Vie. Even so, though the single is gimmicky, it works!"

But doesn't all this sound like Ray Hedges is B*witched, that they are simply the latest in a forty-year line of girl groups owned and controlled, to a great degree, by another male in the music business.

"They are," says Walsh. "But the difference between Boyzone and B*witched is that the boys in Boyzone sell the songs, whereas, with B*witched, the song is selling the girls. But I still think they have a good future ahead of them, especially in Europe."

Ironically, B*witched went to number one in the British charts on the day it was announced that Geri was leaving the Spice Girls. Looking back, Louis Walsh, as manager of Boyzone, admits he was "absolutely jealous" of the group.

"Their success, especially in breaking America, not their voices!" he jokes. "Let's face it, the Spice Girls are not that talented. Four of them look good, but they are better off without Geri because she is too old. 'Geri-atric' I always call her because she definitely is older than she says! But the Spice Girls were lucky, they won the lottery, more than once. Yet the thing I like most about them is the songs, the production, the people in the backroom. That's why I'd really have to say that the Spice Girls themselves probably are the most over-rated act in the world! I saw their show and it was great but they're really not that much different from, say, the Nolan Sisters, with a bit of sex thrown in, but playful sex, not Madonna. They're a great package. But the whole thing is fading now, especially in America, where they've become a bit of a joke."

Even so, Louis Walsh concludes by stating, quite categorically, that Spice Girls, "like Boyzone", were "great for pop" and that, eh, rock is dead.

"Of course it is," he claims. "Everybody is talking about it. All the Def Leppards, all those bands are finished - though, actually, Rick Savage, from Def Leppard, has given me a good song for Boyzone - but rock definitely is dead. Especially in Ireland. This country totally is a place for pop bands, now, not rock bands Look at all the rock bands who were gong to be "the next U2" - where are they now? Probably down in Lillie's Bordello pretending they're still stars, sad, sad figures. Whereas, in terms of pop we have Boyzone, B*witched, The Corrs, The Carters, OTT and so many others. That's what Ireland is known for now, not rock. Let's face it, that whole rock 'n' roll thing never happened here and it's not going to.

"Look at The Devlins. They're very talented, pretty, but they're not making it at all because they want to be a rock band. They want 'credibility' whereas they should be a pop band. They could be huge, if they'd just become a pop band, sell themselves to Smash Hits rather than NME. Either way, they really should realise that Rock really is dead now. In Ireland and all over the world. As U2 said 'Pop' really is where it's all happening now." n